Tag: electro pop

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Deriving their name from a scientific theory that suggests that Earth may have had a second moon, a twin moon that was destroyed in a massive collision during the early days of our solar system, Lunar Twin, an electro pop/dream pop/shoegaze duo comprised of Bryce Boudreau (vocals) and Chris Murphy (multi-instrumentalist and producer) can trace their origins to the 2011 Denver Underground Music Festival when Boudreau joined Murphy’s goth band Nightsweats as a guest vocalist. And by 2013, the duo started collaborating together full-time.

Now, it’s been some time since the duo have released new, original material as both the Los Angeles, CA-based, Hawaii-based Boudreau and the Salt Lake City, UT-based Murphy have been involved in a variety of creative pursuits — with Murphy working in projects that have shared stages with an impressive list of renowned artists including Grimes, Bonnie Prince Billy and Peaches among others; however, the duo’s latest effort Night Tides EP was released earlier this month through Texas-based dream pop/shoegaze label Moon Sounds Records with an extremely limited run of lathe-cut vinyl through the band’s own imprint Lunar Industry Records, and a limited cassette run through their new label. Unsurprisingly because of the distance between the two collaborators, that distance plays a significant thematic role on the material of Night Tides. As Murphy mentions in press notes, ” We both live thousands of miles apart, separated by the Pacific Ocean and miles of mountains and desert. These totally different places of isolation are the nexus of our songwriting. The ocean plays a big part in this album. The ebb an flow of the die and the effect the moon has on it.”

Boudreau adds, “For this EP, we wanted to channel the spirit of the primordial world and a lost island in the equatorial night feeling. The dense warm air smelling of flowers beneath a canopy of banyan trees.”  “Waves,” the first single off Night Tides, Boudreau explains “is about drifting between two worlds — the primeval and the technological and between Earth and Water spirits.”  And while sonically speaking, the duo’s latest single will further cement their reputation for crafting moody and atmospheric pop in which they pair Boudreau’s rich Mark Lanegan-like baritone with a minimalist production featuring propulsive, tribal-like drumming, ambient synths with brief bursts of shimmering guitar and twinkling keys. It’s a hauntingly gorgeous track that manages to evoke  the sensation of awakening from a pleasant reverie and swimming within a warm and gently ebbing  body of water with the moonlight shimmering right in front of you.

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Gorgeous and Moody, Post- Apocalyptic Visuals for Phantom’s “Dance”

Phantom is a Helsinki, Finland-based, newlywed, electro pop duo comprised of jazz-trained vocalist and poet Hanna Toivonen and tech-futurist and producer Tommi Koskinen. And since their formation in 2012, the duo have received praise both nationally and internationally for a sound that has drawn comparisons to Bjork, Morcheeba and The Knife, along with developing a reputation for using new and evolving technologies to further expand and experiment with their sound. In fact, Koskinen built a multi-dimensional technology dubbed The UFO (Ultrasonic Frequency Oscillator) in the duo’s studio space, and as its been described, the user plays and controls the device by flailing their hands above a flying saucer-looking MIDI controller. He also developed a real-time visual projection software called Z Vector, which uses Kinect 3D cameras and audio data from the sounds of their live performances to create an immersive, multimedia-based live set.

MMXII, the duo’s recently released full-length effort derives its name from the year the duo started collaborating together, and the album’s first single “Dance” manages to feature a moody and atmospheric production consisting of scillating synths, twinkling keys, wobbling, tweeter and woofer rocking low end, futuristic, electronic bleeps and bloops and shuffling drum programming paired with Toivonen’s effortlessly soulful vocals. and a gorgeous piano-based arrangement. Sonically speaking, the song sounds as though it draws from several different sources — Morecheeba in particular, but also from Portishead, Niki and the Dove and others, complete with a rousing and soaring hook.

The recently release video features the duo performing the song, while an expressive modern dancer dances to the song in front of a giant projection screen — but the video seems to be set in a dystopian future similar to ours.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of her Johannes Berglund-prodcued, 2011 full-length debut and 2015’s Perfect Storm, the Stockholm, Sweden-based singer/songwriter and electronic pop artist Ester Ideskog, best known as Vanbot quickly established a reputation for crafting ethereal, hook-driven and deeply thoughtful synth-based pop. Ideskog’s soon-to-be released third, full-length effort Siberia will continue her ongoing collaboration with Berglund, who’s best known for his work with The Knife and I Break Horses while being a subtle change in sonic and thematic direction, influenced by a train trip through the Siberian tundra, a trip that was meant to free her and Berglund from the endless choices that the modern recording studio frequently provides, the curiosity of seeing what happens with your songwriting process when you change the patterns you’ve developed. But it may have also been fueled by a desire to escape the mundane, to be in motion and to upset the status quo — even if in a subtle fashion.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of months, you may recall that I wrote about Siberia‘s first single “Collide (Krasnoyarsk),” a brooding, Kate Bush-like atmospheric pop track featuring thumping beats, shimmering arpeggio synths and industrial clang and clatter within an infectious, hook-driven song that reminded me of Niki and the Dove and Moonbabies. The album’s third single “Close Enough (Ulan Bator)” pairs Ideskog’s ethereal and plaintive vocals with a slick, dance floor-friendly production featuring twinkling synths, electronic bleeps and bloops, stuttering drum programming and a soaring hook to create a sound that manages to nod a bit at Kraftwerk‘s Trans Europe Express with the beats mimicking both the sound of metal on metal and the propulsive motion of the train; but paired with intimate and confessional lyrics focusing on an almost insatiable desire to love and to be loved in return.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Anthemic, M83-Channeling Sound of Finnish-born, Spanish-based Producer Future Ark

Tero Heikkinen is Helsinki, Finland-born, Seville, Spain-based composer, who has a lengthy career composing music for short films, documentaries and modern dance pieces; however, his solo recording project Future Ark is a sonic departure from his previous work, the project finds Heikkinen employing the use of experimental and contemporary sound design and electronic production techniques, with bits of organic instrumentation while drawing from a diverse array of styles including downtempo, ambient and synthwave.

Heikkinen’s Future Ark debut Joy was deeply inspired by the birth of his second son, which was a roller coaster ride of positive emotions. And as a result, the EP’s first single and EP opening track “Pacific Highway” features an effortlessly slick production consisting of undulating and shimmering synths, skittering percussion, propulsive drum beats, a soaring, anthemic, M83-like hook and an otherworldly, cosmic sheen — while evoking the buzzing enthusiasm and sense of discovery on a trip to someplace completely new.

Because the composition has a summery feel, the recently released music video consists of videos of fan shot footage of beaches from Spain and elsewhere across the world, and in some way the video manages to evoke the hope and excitement that people all over the world feel about summer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sensual Visuals and Sounds of French Electro Pop Act Juveniles Latest Single “Someone Better”

With the release of their 2012 debut EP We Are Young through renowned French electronic music label Kitsune Records, the-then French electronic production and artist duo Juveniles, which featured Thibault Doray and its sole remaining member Jean-Sylvan Le Gouic, best known as Jean Sylvain quickly received attention for slick, hypermodern, super-computerized, dance floor-friendly productions. Building upon a rapidly growing profile among electronic music circles, the duo released their 2013 Yuksek-produced full-length debut, which expanded the then-duo’s profile across the European Union, Southeast Asia, China and South America.

Since the release of the project’s full-length debut, the project has gone through several significant changes — Doray left the project, leaving it solely under the helm of Sylvain and his sophomore full-length effort Without Warning, which officially was released today through Paradis/Capitol Records finds Sylvain releasing music on a new label after several years with Kitsune Records. Produced and recorded by Joakim at Crowdspacer Studios here in NYC, Without Warning finds the French electronic music artist going through a radical change in sonic direction and approach as he abandons the fully computerized sound of his previously released work to embrace a much more human approach, complete with organic instrumentation, featuring contributions from The Juan Maclean’s, Holy Ghost!’s and Yeasayer’s Christopher Berry (drums) and Big Data’s Ben Campbell (bass), along with pre-digital and traditional mixing and production techniques.

Without Warning’s latest single “Someone Better” features a sinuous and propulsive bass line paired with blocks of arpeggio organ and synth chords, four-on-the-floor drumming, and Sylvain’s sensual and seductive crooning with some of the sharpest, most dance-floor friendly hooks I’ve heard in quite some time. And while arguably being one of the warmest, most soulful, the French electronic music artist has released to date, the song clearly draws from classic disco, bearing a resemblance to Cheryl Lynn’s “Got To Be Real,” Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” but with a subtly modern production sheen.

Produced by Rodrigo Huarte, the recently released music video for “Someone Better” is comprised of a behind the scenes look at anti-hero cop movie in which its main character has a highly-stylized and dramatic love affair with a presumed “hooker with a heart of gold” type character and while the actors “on screen” play up a steamy relationship that they clearly don’t have — at various points, you can tell that both actors are wondering when they’re getting paid or thinking about what they’re doing once the scene is finally over — behind the scenes, two members of the crew, discretely hook up as the rest of the crew films the movie’s key love scene.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first two full-length albums 2012’s self-titled debut and 2014’s Adorn, the Canadian experimental pop/ambient electro pop/dream duo You’ll Never Get To Heaven — comprised of Alice Hansen, a classically trained pianist and violinist and Chuck Blazevic, a studio obsessed tone-sculptor and monome performer — quickly received attention nationally and internationally for a staunchly DIY/independent ethos and for lush, deeply textured compositions that are roomy enough for Hansen’s ethereal cooing.

And as a result of their growing profile, they caught the attention of Yellow K Records, the label home of Eskimeaux and Japanese Breakfast, who officially released the band’s third full-length effort Images today. And while the album’s fourth and latest single “White Light” will further their reputation for crafting lush and textured pop, it offers a subtle expansion into their sound as the slow-burning single features gently swirling electronics, twinkling synths and percussion, brief bursts of industrial clang and clatter to create a fever dream-like vibe — in which the narrator and the listener can’t quite discern if they’re completely asleep and or dreaming or awake and hallucinating.

Interestingly, while the Canadian dream pop duo have in the past been rather reclusive,  they’re currently planning their first European and north American gigs to support Images over the course of the Spring and Summer of this year, so be on the lookout; however, in the meantime, if you’re in Ontario over the next few weeks, you can catch them live. Check out dates below.

Tour Dates
03/31/17 – London, ON – First Spiritualist Church
04/07/17 – Toronto, ON – The Baby G
04/16/17 – Ottawa, ON – Le Temporaire
04/18/17 – Sarnia, ON – Refined Fool Brewing
04/19/17 – Hamilton, ON – The Casbah

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Guy Brown is a Sydney, Australia-based producer and electronic music artist, best known as Mammals — and as Mammals, Brown has seen attention both nationally and internationally for a production style and sound that effortlessly bridges and shifts between indie rock and electro pop. In fact, if you had been frequenting this site earlier this year, you may recall his shimmering, slow-burning and spectral cover of Telepopmusik‘s “Breathe,” as part of Istanbul, Turkey-based dream pop/electro pop label Drug Boulevard‘s debut compilation, DRUG BLVD.

Adding to a growing profile, Brown’s collaboration with renowned electronic music artist and producer Goldroom “‘Til Sunrise” has received 9 million Spotify streams, has had his work playlisted in the Lost in the Woods (UK), Deep Dark Indie, Evening Chill and Boho + Chill Spotify Playlists and as a result, his own work has received over 7 million Spotify streams. Along with that Brown has opened for internationally acclaimed electro pop/electronic dance music production and artist duo PNAU during their March national tour, and he’ll be opening for fellow countrywoman, singer/songwriter Vera Blue during her national tour, before his headlining tour to support his soon-to-be released EP Chase Your Bliss later this year.

Interestingly enough, Brown has managed to achieve his early successes without having management, without being on a label, having a publisher or a publicity firm to back him. And considering that I had written about him a little while ago, receiving an email from him about his latest single, EP title track “Chase Your Bliss,” was a pleasant surprise. The new single features Brown’s tender and aching falsetto floating over a glistening and shimmering production that features layers of arpeggio synths, buzzing guitar chords, a sinuous bass line, cowbell and handclap-led percussion and a soaring hook — and while further cementing his reputation for a sound that meshes indie rock and electro pop, the single manages to sound as though it draws from In Ghost Colours and Free Your Mind-era Cut Copy and Tame Impala, as the song manages to subtly nod at psych pop.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Francis Novotny is an up-and-coming Gothenburg, Sweden-born, Paris, France-based singer/songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, who grew up under the influence of his five older siblings and their eclectic record collections. As the story goes, after finishing school, Novotny moved to Paris, ostensibly to study French — but in reality, to work on music in relative peace and in new environs. Interestingly, for a brief period, Novotny felt compelled to try his hand at house music, before finding his true musical voice and sound, a sound that draws from a mix of styles including glitch-hop, R&B and electro soul while seemingly being influenced by Hudson Mohawke, Cashmere Cat and Gorillaz. And with his latest single “Hit N Run,” the Gothenburg-born, Paris-based artist reveals a imitable sound in which stuttering synths and chopped electronics, razor sharp beats and an insistent ear worm of a hook are paired  with Novotny’s ethereal yet soulful vocals singing lyrics in which the song’s narrator describes reluctance and cynicism that have hardened him a bit and made it difficult for him to open up to a new, potential romantic partner. And yet it’s an incredibly sensual song that sounds unlike anything I’ve come across in some time.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

DGTL CTL is a rather mysterious electro pop duo whose production draws from several different styles while possessing a flair for the avant-garde to craft a truly imitable sound that manages to be radio friendly. The duo’s debut EP is slated for a May 2017 and the EP’s first single “Elephant” features a sparse production that simultaneously nods at slow-burning, Quiet Storm R&B, a chilly but efficient minimalism, breezy atmospherics and a stark industrial electronica as it pairs distorted and shuffling beats, gently swirling and undulating synths and achingly tender vocals with an infectious hook. Lyrically, the song’s narrator talks about falling for someone so deeply that they can’t quite figure out a way to express themselves –they think about the idea of talking to their object of desire and they suddenly feel like a deaf mute, and when they try to put their thoughts and feelings down on paper, it just doesn’t add up to the feelings in their head. And whenever they’re around their object of desire, the only thing they notice is that there’s the proverbial elephant in the room — their longing and desire — and yet so many things are left hopelessly unsaid. And as a result the song possesses an aching desperation and longing, making it one of the most unlikeliest, sensual songs I’ve heard this year.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of its Manchester, UK-born and Paris-based David Shaw and Paris-born and based Dombrance, the Paris-based electronic music and production duo DBFC emerged onto the French electronic music scene with the release of several singles throughout 2015 and 2016 through renowned indie label Her Majesty’s Ship Records — including “Automatic,” a track which remained me of Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express” and Primal Scream‘s “Autobahn 66” — but with a subtle cosmic glow around its edges.

The duo’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Jenks is slated for a June 2, 2017 release through Different Recordings/[PIAS] Records and the album’s first single “Sinner” will partially further their reputation for pairing slick electronic production with organic instrumentation but while a single like  the aforementioned “Automatic” struck me as owing a debut to Kraftwerk and Primal Scream, the new single still nods at those influences while subtly nodding at The Chemical Brothers‘ Come With Us as the song possesses a free-flowing improvisation paired with a similarly trippy and cosmic glow.